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The early Sun had far more intense ultraviolet radiation and solar winds, so atmospheric loss by these processes was likely much greater early in Mars' history, and these processes may have been the dominant ones controlling the planet's climate and habitability, according to the team. It's possible that microbial life could have existed at the surface early in Mars' history. As the planet cooled off and dried up, any life could have been driven underground or forced into occasional or rare surface oases.

Surprisingly, during a single two-month period, four sequential observations reported a spike of 7 ppbv. These values were much too high to explain by comets, meteorites, or dust. They must have been of Martian origin—perhaps a burp from a relatively small and localized subsurface source to the north of the landing site. The Martian winds would blow that methane away over several months, explaining why the signal went away when it did. Alternatively, that pulse could be from a distant and much bigger source, which would require some other unknown mechanism to remove methane quickly. Like the earlier observations of plumes, the spikes seen by Curiosity remain a tantalizing clue to a still-enigmatic Mars.

The new analysis indicates that about 2/3 of the argon that was ever in the Martian atmosphere was lost to space through sputtering. Because CO2 can be lost through other processes, the investigators concluded that a larger fraction of the CO2 was removed.

Eagle Crater is about 72 feet (22 meters) in diameter, at 1.95 degrees south latitude, 354.47 degrees east longitude, in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. The airbag-cushioned lander, with Opportunity folded-up inside, first hit Martian ground near the crater, then bounced and rolled right into the crater. The lander structure was four triangles, folded into a tetrahedron until after the airbags deflated. The triangular petals then opened, exposing the rover. A week later, the rover drove off (see PIA05214), and the landing platform's job was done.

“The new results reveal that Mars’ impact history closely parallels the bombardment histories we’ve inferred for the Moon, the asteroid belt, and the planet Mercury,” Bottke said. “We refer to the period for the later impacts as the ‘Late Heavy Bombardment.’ The new results add credence to this somewhat controversial theory. However, the lull itself is an important period in the evolution of Mars and other planets. We like to refer to this lull as the ‘doldrums.’”

They show that tornado-like wind vortices created by crater-forming impacts and swirling at 500 miles per hour or more, scoured the surface and blasted away dust and small rocks to expose the blockier surfaces beneath.

In this case, the team tested their hypothesis about Mars' formation by running simplified computer scenarios of the formation of the terrestrial, or rocky, planets, and also looked at samples from Earth, Mars, the moon, and Vesta, which is an asteroid. "We looked for Mars analogs that accreted material in a portion of the disc which Earth did not, and we concluded that the only way to do this is to form Mars far from the Sun, in the inner asteroid belt," Brasser wrote.

According to retired US astronaut Clay Anderson -- who's done two separate stints on the International Space Station, totaling more than 150 days -- a home-cooked meal or another emotional crutch during a particularly vulnerable stretch could be the difference between sanity and hysteria in space. "During all those hours, all those days, with crewmates and activities going on around the clock," he said during a panel at SXSW this year, "I could have used a beer every once in awhile."

But in their new study, geologists Dr. Robert Craddock and Dr. Ralph Lorenz show that there was rainfall in the past – and that it was heavy enough to change the planet’s surface. To work this out, they used methods tried and tested here on Earth, where the erosive effect of the rain on the Earth’s surface has important impacts on agriculture and the economy.

Das Marsprojekt was the first technically comprehensive design for a manned expedition to Mars. Von Braun envisioned not a simple preliminary voyage to Mars, but an enormous scientific expedition modeled on the Antarctic model. His Mars expedition was to consist of 70 crew members aboard ten spacecraft - each spacecraft with a mass of 3720 metric tons! To assemble this armada in earth orbit, Von Braun proposed a fully recoverable, reusable three-stage launch vehicle, which was designed to deliver 25 metric tons of cargo plus 14.5 metric tons of 'excess propellant' for the Mars fleet with each launch. Assembly of the expedition would take 950 launches of 46 these reusable space shuttles over eight months from a very busy base at Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. The first and second stages would splash down under parachutes 304 and 1459 km downrange, then be towed back to the launch site by a tug. The winged third stage, after dumping its cargo at the assembly point and pumping its excess propellants to the Mars ships, would glide to a landing on Johnston Island. All three stages would be refurbished at the island, stacked, and reused.

Around three minutes after atmospheric entry the parachute deployed, but the module experienced unexpected high rotation rates. This resulted in a brief ‘saturation’ – where the expected measurement range is exceeded – of the Inertial Measurement Unit, which measures the lander’s rotation rate.

The saturation resulted in a large attitude estimation error by the guidance, navigation and control system software. The incorrect attitude estimate, when combined with the later radar measurements, resulted in the computer calculating that it was below ground level.

The discovery of light-toned bedrock – called ‘halos’ – with high concentrations of silica in Mars’ Gale crater, reveals that groundwater persisted once the lake in Gale crater dried up. The discovery was made by NASA’s Curiosity rover which traveled more than 16 km over 1,700 Martian days from the bottom of Gale crater to Mount Sharp in the crater’s center. For researchers who published the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, it is now a question of whether this extended window of water on Mars enabled life to develop.

In more specific terms, mass and radius increase along with distance among the three planets closest to the Sun (Mercury through Earth). Both parameters peak at the orbit of the fifth planet, Jupiter, which is almost a dozen times the radius and more than 300 times the mass of Earth. Then, from Jupiter through Uranus, the seventh planet, both mass and radius decline substantially along with distance from the Sun.

But this orderly progression of planet sizes has two notable interruptions: Mars and Neptune. If the distribution of planets were truly regular, Mars would be larger and more massive than Earth, and Neptune would be smaller and less massive than Uranus. Instead, the Red Planet has only 53% of Earth’s radius (0.53 Rea) and 11% of its mass (0.11 Mea), while the Azure Planet, at 17.2 Mea and 3.9 Rea, has about 98% of the radius of Uranus but 119% of its mass.

Satellites orbiting Mars and rovers on its surface have provided scientists with convincing evidence that water helped shape the planet’s landscape billions of years ago. But questions have lingered over how much water actually flowed on the planet, and the ocean hypothesis has been hotly debated.

Designed on behalf of Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology, Edinburgh University, this tartan is intended to be worn during Mars science, exploration and outreach activities. Colours: the red background depicts the surface of Mars, the Red Planet; blue depicts the water-rich past of Mars and the presence of water, mainly as ice, on the planet today; the four green lines represent Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, the presence of habitable conditions on the planet and the possible future presence of life in the form of human settlement; the thick white line represents the Martian poles, visible from the Earth, a conspicuous and important feature of the planet and its long-term climatic cycles.

"It'll be the first time that we operate a fission reactor that could be used in space since [the] 1960s SNAP program," said Lee Mason, who oversees power and energy storage technology development at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

These tests yielded even more bad news for microscopic Martians: when the bacteria were hit with UV rays in the presence of perchlorates, iron oxide and peroxide, the bugs were killed 11 times faster than with perchlorates alone.

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